March 20, 2010

Today was the best bike ride I ever had. No kidding. It is one I will remember for the rest of my life, and I'm not sure I will ever have a ride as wonderful as this ever again. It was one of those rides that you know will help to define your destination, and give clues to were you are supposed to go.

After yesterday's 5 hours in the saddle (yes, the race was for 6 hours but more on that when I get the race report up), the schedule for today called for a quick 60 minutes in the office at 8am, then a carnival with the family until about 13:00, followed by 3 hours worth of tempo work (15 mins at 80% effort, 5 mins at 70% effort. Repeat.) on the single speed.

The weather was just perfect. Short sleeves, no jacket. Sunny. Not a cloud in the sky.

Work ran WAY long and I was there until almost noon in the morning. I missed playing with the boys at the carnival, and, before I knew it, it was closing in on 13:00 before I caught up with my family. First thing I see is my four year old still sporting his little 29er Crew jersey that he had worn at the race last night.

I set my temp basal rate on my pump, and loaded up the bike. After getting changed into my own Crew riding gear, I headed outside to get going. Little J was playing in the driveway waiting for me to leave. I gave him hugs, climbed into the car, and headed out.

I slowly pulled out of the driveway into the street and looked back in the mirror at my son as I drove away. He was beginning to turn his attention to the small golf set he had recently gotten. I let the car quietly roll to a stop, and starred into the images reflected in the mirror...

A couple of months ago I set some extremely large short and long term goals for myself in terms of cycling, the Type1Rider organization, and the shattering of long standing barriers about diabetic athletic endurance and blood glucose control. Since then, with the sacrifices, support, and help from my family, my life has seem to become defined as a mass of 50+ hour work weeks, seemingly endless meetings and phone calls, a lcak of quality sleep, and mounds of training logs tracking hours in the saddle, calories burned, diet, vertical feet climbed, and wattage output.

And although I making quality progress and am completely focused on the ball, I REALLY, REALLY miss just playing with my 2 little boys. I could single handily find a cure for diabetes AND win the UCI world endurance championship, and it would fail in comparison to how I feel about being with them.

I was so completely honored and touched that he was still wearing his dad's jersey.

I put the car in reverse and backed back up into the driveway.

I looked at little J, and asked if he wanted to go for am ride. He yelled "YES!". I quickly grabbed his 12" wheeled single speed bike, kid sized Bonty gloves, and helmet and loaded them in the car.

My four year old teammate and I were off!

We arrived at the ride location right around 14:45. I filled an extra couple of water bottles and stuffed them in my jersey pockets. I also grabbed a few extra sports bars and a few more bags of peanut m&m's for me and my riding partner.

During the next 2.5hrs we headed out along the greenway by the lake, and then, when that ended, we went back up past were we parked the car into Umstead State Park to the airport.

Little man road the whole 12+ miles without any help from me. We talked, "raced" each other, and stopped every so often to climb on fallen trees or look at some cool rocks. We met other people making new friends, and saw some other riders we already new. He "refueled" on red M&Ms since they are faster ya know, and he was SO PROUD of himself when we reached our final declared destination at the RDU airport perimeter.

It was the ride of my life.

After taking 20 minutes to watch cars from the closed overpass over I-40 we arrived back at the car. It was near 18:00 and he was exhausted but very excited.

J was telling me about his favorite parts of the ride as I put the bikes up on the car. It dawned on me at that specific instant that riding bikes for me had changed forever. For the better.

I will, as I have stated, use every ounce of my being in unrelenting pursuit of my stated goals, and, will not stop until they are all met. No matter how much work or how long that takes. I can promise you of that.

However, I was reminded that cycling is so much more about moments like today. The time spend riding today with my son was one of life's magical moments. I am so incredibly fortunate to have had this day.